impossible is just a word
by callistawolf
Summary: Rose wasn' t the sort of woman to just let a little phrase like you can 't deter her. She 'd seen and done too many incredible things in the last couple of years to let it be the final answer.


When Rose Tyler was a little girl, she had many dreams. Her dreaming used to drive her mum, Jackie, spare. Jackie was practical, hardened by life's circumstances, and as she saw it, such frivolous fantasies were not only a waste of time, but dangerous as well.

Rose used to talk nonstop about how, someday, she'd meet her father and talk to him and they'd play together in the park. Jackie worried that these dreams would consume Rose if she didn't nip them in the bud.

"Don't be silly, Rose. That's impossible. He's gone," Jackie would chide, willing her precocious daughter to abandon her daydreams.

This was also around the time that Rose really discovered fairy tales and Disney movies and love and romance. She watched the Little Mermaid marry Prince Eric and Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and all the others and decided she wanted that for herself. She wanted a fairytale love story. She wanted a handsome prince to love her and make her happy for the rest of her life.

Jackie was bitter, having recently broken up with her boyfriend Jarod from the third floor, and had no patience for her daughter's romantic notions. She knew better than most that love didn't last forever and dreams died, and so did husbands.

"Rose, that's not real," she admonished one rainy afternoon while Rose watched Snow White. "Love like that... it's just made up for the story. It's just not practical, sweetheart."

Rose knew her mum was trying to be kind but at the same time, she found herself aggravated at being told what she couldn't do.

As Rose got older, her dreams grew with her. She longed to get away from the estate, even if just for a holiday. She wanted to see what was out there, breathe different air and step on different soil. One of the girls she went to school with came back from summer holidays talking about her family's trip to Disneyland Paris. Rose became fixated on the idea of her and her mum crossing the channel, and spending days exploring the theme park together. They would ride all the rides (some even twice), and meet new and interesting people. She talked about going on this trip constantly, hoping to inspire her mum as well.

Finally, Jackie snapped. "Enough, Rose! We can't go to Paris, we don't have the money. What you want is impossible!"

There was that word again.

Rose grew into a teenager and she watched as her friends began to succumb to the pressures and realities of living on the estate. Everyone grew hard eventually, just like her mum, but Rose was determined not to let it happen to her.

She dreamed about getting her A-levels, maybe even going on to University and doing something important with her life. She wasn't quite sure what she'd do, exactly, but she wanted to be a teacher or a solicitor or maybe even a doctor.

She made the mistake of telling these dreams of hers to Jimmy Stone. They'd only been dating for a month, but Rose was already falling in love with him. He was older, more sophisticated, and could charm the pants off a monk. But he was already trying to talk her into leaving school after she passed her GCSE exams next month. So she shouldn't have been surprised when he rolled his eyes at her admission about her hopes. Still, his dismissiveness hurt.

"Get real, Rose!" he groaned. "You're a girl from the estate. No way could you ever become a _doctor_. Talk about impossible!"

She really, _really_ hated that word.

A few years later, the impossible began to happen for Rose Tyler. Against all odds and all that was logical, she met an alien. Not a little green man, but a tall, handsome and broken man, wearing leather and an attitude. In a matter of days, he showed her amazing sights (starting with his big blue box that was much, much bigger on the inside). And then, this brilliant and fascinating man asked her to come along with him. She wanted to, so very, very badly. But Mickey was clinging to her, begging her to stay _("It's impossible!")_, and she thought of her mum, who needed her still _("Don't be silly!")_. She turned him down, this bloke who called himself the Doctor, and tried not to let her own disappointment crush her.

But he came back. The Doctor gave her a second chance to change her mind and grab life for herself. This time, Rose couldn't say no. Breathless with excitement, she ran into this amazing box that he called the TARDIS and didn't look back even once.

The impossible was going to start now.

That was the day Rose's dreams began to come true. With the flick of a lever and the fiddling of complicated-looking controls, she was able to travel and see new places, do exciting things, and meet interesting people. This was _so_ much better than Disneyland Paris.

Rose saw her planet explode, met more strange-looking aliens than she could have ever imagined existed, and argued with a flap of skin, even! She went back in time and met Charles Dickens, who was actually an amazingly wonderful bloke. She helped save the Earth from destruction at the hands of a mercenary Slitheen family and then... she did something that her mum had told her countless times long ago was never going to happen.

She met her dad.

It was both so much better and so much worse than she'd ever imagined it could be. Things had gone so wrong and it had all been her fault, but her daddy had figured out who she was. The pride and affection she'd seen in his eyes had filled an aching hole in her heart.

Her daddy died anyhow, but this time he died a hero. He saved the world. And Rose got her wish to be with him as he passed. The somber moment humbled her and as she returned with the Doctor to the TARDIS, she felt she'd grown and loved and lost.

After the tears had been shed and dried, Rose had to smile at having once more achieved the impossible.

The Doctor, and the adventures she shared with him, quickly became the focus of Rose's life. The two of them were close, best mates even. Maybe there was something more there or maybe she was just imagining it. After all, she couldn't fathom the Doctor in a relationship with anyone, least of all her. Talk about impossible...

Everything was going great, until everything fell apart. They'd been snatched, right out of the TARDIS, along with their new friend Jack Harkness. They'd been forced to partake in bloodthirsty reality programmes that were only puppet shows distracting them from the true horror: Daleks. And a lot of them.

Rose hadn't been scared of a Dalek the first time she'd met one, but surrounded by hundreds, she reversed her opinion. Still, she was ready to stay and fight and do what was right because that's what she'd learned from the Doctor.

He sent her away. She knew it was because he couldn't bear to see her die, but she felt furious with him all the same. It felt like he was saying she couldn't do this. That it was _impossible_.

These feelings percolated as she sat in the chippy with her mum and Mickey, until she could no longer bear the weight of them on her soul. She couldn't just take "impossible" for an answer. She loved him, wise or not, and she could not let him die alone. She'd been with her dad at the end and that had been "impossible" too. Rose knew she could do this.

Her suspicions were only confirmed when she saw "Bad Wolf" spray painted all over the estate. These words were a message, telling her she could get back to the Doctor! She knew it with a bone-deep certainty. Why else would the same message be in the future, with the Doctor, and here as well?

Tearing open the console of the TARDIS was a challenge, but with the help of Mickey and her mum, Rose got it done. She looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into her heart as well. She focused on her desire to return to the Doctor, on wanting to keep him safe. The last things she knew were a blinding, golden light and a beautiful, haunting song ringing in her ears.

When Rose woke up on the hard, grating floor of the TARDIS console room, she wondered if it had all been a dream. The Doctor was here, running around the console, no worse for the wear as far as she could tell.

But Jack wasn't there. If it'd been a dream, Jack would surely be there. She tried to ask the Doctor what had happened, but he just evaded her questions and began babbling some nonsense about dogs with no noses.

Apparently, impossible was not through with them yet. No sooner had Rose gotten her wits about her once more, than this alien, this _man_ she loved, exploded into fire and emerged from the inferno wearing a new face.

Regeneration, he called it. Bloody rude of him not to warn her about it sooner, she thought. But then, that was him now; rude and not ginger. Slim and a little bit foxy.

Once again, Rose Tyler ate impossible for breakfast. She stood up to the Sycorax horde while the Doctor slept off his regeneration. Scared? Sure, she was. But what else could she do when her planet was at stake? As he'd taught her to do, she stood up for what was right.

It took a bit for her to get used to this new Doctor, but she did. It didn't hurt that he was now so flirty and affectionate, that half the time her cheeks hurt from grinning so much. More than ever before, she had to remind herself that a relationship with the Doctor was hopeless.

But, _stars_, did they make a fantastic team together. More in sync than ever before, they could communicate with no more than a few furtive looks and hand gestures, and could uncannily predict each other's reactions to just about any situation.

The Doctor and Rose stumbled, a time or two. For a while, it had seemed like he was trying to put distance between them. But, as though he couldn't bear to follow through, he came back to her. And they were closer than ever. Rose began to wonder if romance was truly impossible after all.

Deeper and deeper they fell together, so caught up in one another and their own cleverness that they failed to realise that the noose around both their necks was tightening. The walls were closing in on them, rather literally.

The day it happened was a day filled with the realisation of unlikely, out of the question scenarios. Daleks were back, impossibly so. The Cybermen travelled from the parallel world, against all odds. Rose was able to see Mickey again, alive, happy and full of purpose, after believing him lost forever. Her mum and her dad from the parallel world were thrown together, and a happy ending for them together seemed inevitable. Even her most fantastic childhood fantasies couldn't have predicted that turn of events.

But, on the heels of this most happy moment, the bottom fell out and Rose fell with it. She was torn, cruelly and inexorably, away from her Doctor. They were trapped, universes apart from one another. And when the Doctor burnt up a sun in order to say goodbye to her _(but he hates goodbyes!)_, he told her she couldn't see him again.

It would be, of course, impossible.

Rose wasn't the sort of woman to just let a little phrase like "you can't" deter her. She'd seen and done too many incredible things in the last couple of years to let it be the final answer.

For one thing, she loved him. Rose had finally told him so, and she thought he might have been about to tell her something similar if they hadn't run out of time so unexpectedly. He was the one for her, laughable or not, and she had no intention of turning her back on happiness so easily.

For another, he was alone. She knew the Doctor well enough now to know that he should not ever be left alone. He'd been unpredictable and mad with grief after the Time War. She'd helped him heal from the despair, showed him the joy of living again. If he were grieving again, which his tired and haunted eyes had seemed to indicate when she'd spoke to him on that cursed, wind-blown beach, she was worried about what he might do. Especially if he was feeling... careless.

With some help from Pete and a renewed sense of determination, Rose began to study physics. Dimly, she remembered Jimmy's opinions about her furthering her education and smiled.

She was Rose Tyler, once again doing what shouldn't have been imaginable.

The Dimension Canon never should have worked. With the walls between universes sealed (and by the Doctor's own hand, no less!), the technology should never have been successful. But then, the stars had begun to go out and reality began to fray and warp. And Rose knew...

So, on one fateful Wednesday in late spring, four years after saying goodbye to the love of her life, Rose did the unthinkable once more and traveled back to her home universe.

She found a timeline that was wrong. So very, very wrong. The Doctor had died, and it appeared to have occurred not long after he'd burnt up a sun for her. Rose allowed herself a brief moment of despair as she leaned over his motionless body in the city morgue. She'd come so far...

This was what she'd feared. She'd worried he might do something foolish if he were alone and sad. It could have been an accident, but him not regenerating was definitely on purpose. Rose pushed away her grief and felt a stinging of raw anger towards him for giving up. Then, she pushed the gurney carrying his body out of the building and into the back of a waiting UNIT truck.

She realised later that this timeline was not supposed to have happened. The Doctor wasn't meant to be alone underneath the Thames. He was meant to have met another woman named Donna Noble just after their goodbye. She was supposed to be with him when he confronted the Racnoss, and she was the one who urged him to stop and save himself. But she wasn't there and Rose had to find out why.

UNIT was in awe of her, she could tell, but Rose had no time to deal with the questions. She pieced together the fragments of Donna's timeline and devised a solution. She couldn't know if it would work, but she had to try. She was Rose Tyler, and she hadn't come this far to give up now.

Improbable. Outrageous. Preposterous...

Her plan had worked. The timeline had corrected itself and everything had gotten back on track, easy as you like. Donna Noble saved the Doctor, saved Rose, saved _everyone_, really.

But the danger wasn't over yet. There was still the matter of the disappearing stars. Then, the Earth was stolen, the Daleks invaded _(of course, them, always them)_, and chaos reigned. Still, amidst it all and defying all likelihood, she found him on an abandoned street in Chiswick.

The look on his face, that impossible grin lighting his features, told her he had missed her every bit as much as she'd missed him. As they ran towards one another, Rose became excited at the prospect of finally having him in her arms once more. That was why she never saw that Dalek there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike.

He would regenerate. Of course, he would, to save himself. Still, Rose couldn't help feeling frustrated and upset. She didn't want to lose him, _this_ him, so soon after returning. They needed more time together.

But, of course, the Doctor had a plan. He always did, that brilliant man. He had his own hand in a jar, of all the crazy things. Jack _(he was there and how was he there?)_ had found the hand after it had been lopped off on Christmas during the battle with the Sycorax leader. Inconceivable, that. Jack had given the hand to the Doctor and he'd kept it in the console room ever since. He was able to use the hand and the jar to store his excess regeneration energy so that he wouldn't have to change his appearance again. It seemed like a simple and perfect, if unlikely, solution.

Things had still gone pear-shaped, though. Rose should have expected it and she was wondering if there were more at play than just odds and luck. The hand had become, in their darkest and most needful hour, the Doctor _(another Doctor... unbelievable!)_ and together with Donna _(always so important, her)_ they had saved the day. They had saved everything, actually. Multiple universes as well as twenty-seven misplaced planets.

It all lead back to that blasted, desolate beach in Norway, and a choice that wasn't really a choice at all. How could she possibly choose between him and, well, _him_? It was impossible. No, the original Doctor had already decided for her. The scene played out on the sand was just another puppet show. Rose comforted herself with the knowledge that at least he would have Donna with him. If he were going to be alone, she didn't think she could have ever let him leave without her.

As the two of them stood on that beach, hand in hand, watching the square spot in the sand where the TARDIS had been, they each tried to figure out where to go next. Each worried the other would reject them and this new life they'd been thrust into.

Moving on from everything seemed outrageous to her. She'd spent so long working to get back, how could she just _stop_? But as she turned her head to look at him, as she caught his profile that she remembered so well, Rose began to think that maybe, just _maybe_, she finally had what she'd been after all along anyhow. As hard as it was to believe, she chose to believe it.

Five years later, Rose finally realised she'd achieved another one of her impossible dreams from when she'd been just a little girl on the estate; she had a fairytale love.

They'd each taken the time to get to know one another again after that day on Bad Wolf Bay. The love was still very much there, perhaps even more so for everything they'd gone through to get to where they were. And now that the Doctor felt free to love her properly, he did so with single-minded fervour. Even now, five years later, he could still make her blush with nothing more than a single, heated look.

Rose had never expected him to propose; she thought the Doctor was above all that domestic stuff. But ever since they had come here together, he'd made a great show of embracing all the domestics. Grocery shopping on Saturday afternoons, tea with mum on Sundays, cleaning the flat together on Wednesday nights... he did it all with gusto. So she shouldn't have been surprised when he dropped down to one knee that one Friday night, right in the middle of a crowded restaurant. He'd spilled his heart to her and asked her to be his forever. Her answer had been a no-brainer.

So, here she stood, swathed in ivory satin, clutching a bundle of long-stemmed calla lilies and watching Pete pace in front of the double doors leading into the church. Rose was trembling, though not with nerves. She was _excited_. She felt as though she were standing at the edge of a precipice, waiting to jump.

She couldn't wait to jump.

The wedding coordinator poked her head out of the doors and signaled to them that it was time to start. Pete hurried to her side, looking uncharacteristically nervous. He held out his arm for her to take with her free hand and she did.

"Ready, love?" he asked, smiling shakily down at her.

"_So_ ready," she replied, grinning.

The doors swung open and the music swelled. Flowers and tulle draped every surface and the pews were filled with friends and business associates. But Rose only had eyes for the tall man standing up at the end of the aisle. He was wearing a black tuxedo, black Chucks, and a beaming grin. She returned his grin for all she was worth and took a step forward into the rest of her life.


End file.
